arhyalon

This weekend being Juss's birthday, we decided to take advantage of the free weekend at ZooAmerica at Hershey's park in Hershey's PA. We knew about this thanks to my friend Sharon, who had sent us a link about it. Apparently, the weekend was free, and they had groundhog activities. So, we played hooky from church -- something we almost NEVER do -- and went to the zoo in honor of Juss' birthday and Groundhog day.

The zoo had groundhog activities, which Juss loved, especially the one where you went around to the exhibits and found out whether certain animals were relatives or predators of groundhogs. It was all North American animals. We loved seeing the wolves, the lynx, the mountain lion, the magpie and the prairie dogs (a relative!), the nocturnal desert exhibit -- that was really cool! And the bears, which you could see quite close.

Well, imagine our surprise and delight when, while we were admiring the beautiful wolves, who should come up to the wolf exhibit, but my friend Sharon and her family! My husband was so amazed and confused that I knew someone in Pennsylvania! He was even more amused to find out that it was the friend from home who had told us about the zoo being free this weekend. He thought if we had planned to meet, we surely would not have found each other so easily. What are the chances that we'd both pick the same day, same time, and meet at the wolves!

After the zoo (which the kids loved!) we went to Chocolate World. The kids LOVED the ride through the chocolate-making process. We took this ride three times, and enjoyed some chocolate and ice cream. Then, as we were leaving, whom did we see but -- Sharon and co again! How neat!

In the car on the way up and down, we read aloud The Mystery of Mr. Nice, a Chet Gecko, Private Eye mystery. We love Chet Gecko. Orville even has his own Edarian version, Segallion Rapscallion. Chet solved the mystery in the time we had and we all enjoyed discussing the clues.

It was a wonderful day, and we're so grateful to Sharon for letting us know about it!

"Well, imagine our surprise and delight when, while we were admiring the beautiful wolves"

A few years ago my family came out to visit in Colorado. One of our stops was the Denver Zoo. Unfortunately, the wolves were hiding that day, and my brother had been looking forward to it all day. I called up one of my friends, who volunteers at this wolf refuge (she's a vet tech in the Army). She called up the owner and got us in to see the wolves! The look on my brother's face as he was petting a wolf was priceless.

A little bit about the wolf refuge. They take wolves that people once tried to keep as pets and later abandon them. These wolves cannot live in the wild, because they do not know how. However, they are still wild animals so they cannot live in people's backyard either. Chinook, the first wolf, was practically near death when she was rescued.